Mammography

North Dakota has 44 providers of
mammography services in 61 cities and 82 locations providing
approximately 70,000 mammography examinations each year (click here to see a map of mammography
locations). Twenty-six
cities offer mammography services daily, Monday through Friday.
Thirty-five cities offer a somewhat limited service by one of five
mobile systems operating throughout North Dakota. Mobile
service providers schedule services based on utilization.
Frequency can vary from weekly to only once per year for a
particular location. Click Here for an alphabetical listing, by city, along with contact telephone
numbers for all locations.

United States Congress passed the Mammography
Quality Standards Act (MQSA) in 1992 after the Senate Labor and
Human Resources Committee found numerous shortcomings in the
quality of mammography services. The committee identified
inconsistencies in the quality of equipment, staff qualifications,
quality assurance procedures and oversight in mammography
facilities which threatened the quality of services across the
country.

The goal of MQSA was to create a
system to correct these shortcomings and ensure that quality
mammography would be available to patients everywhere in the
country. At the same time, however, MQSA was not intended to
close down facilities; it was intended to help them raise their
standards of performance. Reducing availability of mammography
through overbearing regulation would defeat the underlying
purpose of MQSA.

The need to improve our ability to
fight breast cancer also led to the development of the final
regulations published October 28, 1997, in the Federal Register.
These final regulations were developed through a cooperative
effort with affected medical communities, consumers and the
National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee
(NMQAAC). Interim regulations allowed the MQSA to take effect
October 1, 1994.

The US Food and Drug
Administration's (FDA) Division of Mammography Quality and
Radiation Programs oversees the requirements of MQSA. MQSA
requires mammography facilities to have accreditation from an
approved accreditation body, be certified by the FDA and undergo
an annual inspection.

The North Dakota Radiation Control
Program (RCP) has a contract with the FDA to inspect mammography
facilities in North Dakota. The MQSA inspectors must be certified
by the FDA. Certification requires 6 weeks training, as well as
the passing of both written and performance evaluations. North
Dakota has two certified inspectors. To maintain certification,
inspectors must perform a minimum of 12 inspections annually and
obtain 15 hours of mammography education every three year period.
The FDA conducts audit inspections with each inspector on an
annual basis. Annual facility inspections have been conducted
since 1992.

Links to Other Mammography
Information SourcesPlease read this Disclaimer prior to connecting to these websites.

The FDA currently maintains a
listing of certified mammography facilities (updated weekly).